Thank you for reading this.
While looking for something to do recently, I came across a project that I was working on four years ago. It's the basis of a PIC controller for a home-built satellite dish rotator.
It's taken me the better part of a week to figure out what it's all about and I now remember one of the problems that slowed the pace of the project. I'm wondering if it's worth the effort of continuing.
The PIC was counting pulses reasonably well from the elevation jack but was not always accurate because of noise pulses from the motor. I expect the larger azimuth rotator motor will produce even more hash. An accurate pulse count is important so as not to accumulate a large error towards the end of a satellite pass. Constant stopping and starting would probably add extra pulses too.
Do home TV dish pointers use shielded cable to take the position pulses back to the controller? It's not something that I can test myself because my satellite gear is in storage more that 1100km from where I live.
I'm having second thoughts about the pulse counting scheme and I'm beginning to think that the tried and proven ten-turn pot method might be more fool proof.
Has anyone else had any success, or otherwise, with pulse counting? It's an interesting project but it might be impractical.
Regards, Phil.